TOGETHER WITH

It's Tuesday and if you’ve scrolled through TikTok lately, then you might be feeling the urge to turn your next weekend adventure into a Wes Anderson movie.

MARKIPLIER IN HOLLYWOOD

Markiplier is set to finance, write, direct, co-produce, and star in a Hollywood horror movie

Markiplier is headed to Hollywood. The YouTube icon—whose real name is Mark Fischbach—is set to direct and star in a film adaptation of the horror video game Iron Lung.

Fischbach is going all in on the movie’s production.

Per Deadline, the Ohio native will adapt a script he wrote himself, serve as one of the film’s three producers (alongside Will Hyde and Jeff Guerrero) and finance the feature out of his own pocket. Fischbach will be just as involved once the cameras start rolling; in addition to his other three roles, the YouTuber plans to direct the Iron Lung adaptation and star in it alongside Caroline Rose Kaplan. Iron Lung’s developer, David Syzmanski, will also be involved in bringing the game’s sub-nautical sense of terror to theaters.

The film unites two vibrant fanbases. 

Iron Lung earned rave reviews when released in 2022, while Markiplier reaches 34 million subscribers on his namesake YouTube channel and has achieved chart-topping success with podcasts like Distractible and Go! My Favorite Sports Team. (The video versions of both shows were recently announced as Spotify exclusives.)

This new direction isn’t Markiplier’s first dive into screenwriting and filmmaking. Fischbach distributed a documentary called Markiplier from North Korea last year, and received an Emmy nomination for his interactive YouTube series, In Space with Markiplier. Now that the creator’s taking on Hollywood, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the upcoming Iron Lung film became his next smash hit.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Wondering what you could do with extra funds? Here’s how top creators leveraged their investments from Spotter

For YouTube’s most-subscribed-to creators, there’s only one place to find immediate creator-friendly capital and top-notch support: Spotter. Spotter has paid out more than $740 million in investments since 2019 to 1,100 channel partners. Best of all: deals with Spotter are super flexible and always personalized, with amounts ranging between $100,000 and $50+ million.

So, how do the internet’s top creators invest their  Spotter funds ?

• Level-Up Content: Creators have elevated their content by investing in premium equipment, expanding their teams, and reinvesting in essential production personnel. 🎥
  
  

• Brand Development: With the support of Spotter capital, creators have developed their own unique brands and creator products both on YouTube and beyond to secure brand longevity. 📈
  
  

• Studio Space: Creators have increased their production capabilities, ideation, and creativity by investing in properties that provide functional workspaces to unlock their full creative potential. 🏡

And since Spotter understands that creating a world-changing catalog requires more than just capital, they also provide a community that hinges on two elements. First,  invaluable performance insights  to better inform creators’ content strategy via exclusive YouTube data. Second, they bring creators together through events aimed at generating fresh ideas, collaborations, and knowledge sharing.

So, when you’re ready to make your dream a reality…

 Fund your future with Spotter → 

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• According to Bloomberg, CoComelon has linked up with Universal to develop its first-ever feature film. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Grimes took to Twitter this week to offers artists the opportunity to “split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song” using her voice. (Engadget)
  
  
  

• BeReal’s latest test feature gives users who respond to the app’s daily prompt the the ability to publish two extra posts per day. (BeReal)
  
  
  

• Snapchat’s latest AI-driven feature, MyAI, prompted so many 1-star reviews that the app’s average weekly U.S. App Store rating reportedly dropped to 1.67. (TechCrunch)

DATA • GLOBAL TOP 50 📈

From Wednesday Addams to MrBeast, this YouTube hub is all about pop culture icons

Who would prevail in hand-to-hand combat: MrBeast or Thing from Netflix’s Wednesday? If you’ve never asked yourself that question, then you might not be the target audience for Banana D.

Luckily for the Hong Kong-based channel, 57 million viewers have already tuned in to watch the YouTube star battle Wednesday Addams’ right-hand man—and another 40 million have stopped by to see how MrBeast holds up against a giant cockroach.

Those bizarre pop culture face-offs have earned Banana D. a devoted fanbase.

The creator behind Banana D. says they “used to be a game developer” before entertaining more than 1 million subscribers with their 3D-animated Shorts. That career change has worked out in a big way:

• Over the course of just seven days, Banana D. scored a whopping 242.2 million weekly views.
  

• That massive total added up to a 52% week-over-week viewership increase.
  

• All of which helped the Shorts hub climb 56 spots to reach #39 in our latest Global Top 50.

KEFFALS V. LONDON

Keffals filed a human rights complaint against the London Police Service. Here’s why it matters:

Keffals’ tenure as a trans activist and Twitch streamer hasn’t been an easy one. After taking on abusive forum Kiwi Farms in 2022, the creator—whose IRL name is Clara Sorrenti—says she warned the London Police Service that she could become a victim of swatting. Five months later on August 5, 2022, the LPS arrested Keffals after a hoax email claimed that she had killed her mother and was planning on shooting cisgender people at London’s City Hall.

In an Aug. 9th YouTube upload describing that incident, Sorrenti explained how she’d been woken up in the middle of the night by an officer aiming a gun at her, how she’d been arrested by police referring to her with her deadname, and how her electronic devices had been seized before she was finally released without charges. Former LPS chief Steve Williams ordered an internal review following Sorrenti’s arrest, and determined that the involved officers acted appropriately based on “limited information.”

Now, Sorrenti is taking action against the police department.

On April 10, Sorrenti filed filed a human rights complaint against the London Police Service (LPS), which asked that she be awarded $75,000 in damages for injury to her dignity, feelings and self-respect and $50,000 for loss of income and other damages caused by the incident. In addition, the streamer requested that the LPS require police to wear body cameras when interacting with trans civilians, and change its record management procedures and policies to ensure it is accommodating trans people.

WATCH THIS 📺

Would you #PitchMrBeast for a chance to earn some cash?

MrBeast has another big opportunity in store for his loyal viewers. The YouTube icon is teaming up with Shopify to fly an entrepreneur out to his headquarters in North Carolina, where they’ll be featured in one of his video (and, of course, get some money to grow their business).

Entrepreneurs can #PitchMrBeast by dueting his video and talking about their fledgling companies in posts published before April 24 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Interested in shooting your shot? Check out our full coverage for more info on eligibility.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.